Distinguished professor of industrial engineering and chancellor emeritus, University of Arkansas

John Austin White, Jr, Ph.D., P.E. (born 1940) was the fourth chancellor of the University of Arkansas. He succeeded Daniel Ferritor in 1997 after previously serving as the dean of Georgia Institute of Technology's College of Engineering. As chancellor, Dr. White transformed the University of Arkansas; including the $1 billion "Campaign for the 21st Century" capital campaign, which created the University of Arkansas Honors College, endowed the University of Arkansas Graduate School and UA Libraries, added 132 tenured faculty, 1738 scholarships and fellowships, funded millions of dollars of brick and mortar improvements, and grew the university by almost every academic statistic.[1] Since his departure from the chancellor's office in 2008, White has remained at the university, teaching in the industrial engineering department.

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"In the future, I believe historians will identify this day as a defining moment, an inflection point, a turning point, for the University of Arkansas. Today, we send a message, loud and clear, to the nation’s best universities: move over! The University of Arkansas is joining your ranks; it will stand equally, shoulder to shoulder, with the best universities this nation has to offer!"

—John White, announcing the Campaign for the 21st Century on October 26, 2001[2]

White left his job as dean of Georgia Institute of Technology's College of Engineering in order to become chancellor at his alma mater, the University of Arkansas in 1997. Promising to be an agent of change, White worked to shift the focus of the institution onto academics, including research and knowledge-based careers the state would need to compete in the global economy. Under his leadership, the university embarked on the "Campaign for the 21st Century", an ambitious capital campaign initially set for a goal of $500 million, despite having a total endowment of only $119 million in 1997.[2][3]

The Campaign for the Twenty-First Century allowed for the creation of the University of Arkansas Honors College, while endowing University Libraries and the University of Arkansas Graduate School. In the classroom, 132 faculty positions were endowed and 1,738 scholarships and fellowships were added. New donors accounted for a significant portion of the Campaign, with 41,600 of 72,641 total donors giving to UA academics for their first time. Benefactors made 304,328 individual gifts and pledges by the campaign's end in 2005.[1] The largest gift was $300 million, pledged by the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation, the largest gift in the history of public education philanthropy at the time.[4]